Another point is that in the UK we are not as experienced at true Winter Ops.
Pete me old mate,
While it may be true that you and your company don't do much winter stuff, remember that some UK and Irish companies operate scheduled services to all sorts of cold and snowy places and have a great deal of experience with contaminated runways and winter ops.
I think it may be fair to say that UK airports are not as adept at handling snow and slush as the northern europeans and this may lead to a certain amount of frustration by crews, hence the runway inspection, but the prevailing weather in the UK hardly merits the investment in snow monitoring and clearing equipment and training that our northern colleagues rely on continuously for 3 months every year!!
Roll on global warming.
No. 9